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Monday, March 11, 2013

Meet the Characters

Monday Meanderings

I
want you to get to know some of the characters of my novel That Summer. For the next few Mondays I’ll interview one of the
characters and you can leave comments if you want. I think this might help you
when you read my novel to know how these characters feel as they move through
the story.

Today
I’m interviewing John Lee Callaway who is the father of the Callaway family of
his wife and five children. It's 1928, they live on a farm in the Southern Appalachians of
East Tennessee, and are poor.

JO:
Hello, John Lee. Thank you for talking with me today.

JOHN
LEE: Glad to be here.

JO:
We’d like to get to know a little about you. Can you share
with us something good in your life?

JOHN
LEE: Well, uh, there’s not much good about my life right now. Me
and my family are havin’ a hard time with the farm—the crops didn’t make like
they ought to. And I can see fear in the children’s eyes whenever I come
around. My life’s pretty messed up right now.

JO:
Go on, John Lee. I’m here to listen and maybe help you see
things better.

JOHN
LEE: I don’t know anything else to tell you about.

JO:
John Lee, do you know
why your children have fear in their eyes when they see you?

JOHN
LEE: I guess it’s because I’ve been pretty mean to the boys and
seein’ how I treat them, it makes the girls even afraid of me now. But, you
know, I don’t want them afraid of me. I love my children and Elizabeth, my
wife. But somethin’ inside of me has a hold on me and I can’t do no better.

JO:
What do you think has a hold on you?

JOHN
LEE: I don’t really know but I can feel it deep inside of me.
Whatever it is makes me be mean to the family. I act like a mean man most of
the time. I wish I could shake the feelin’ down inside of me and maybe
everythin’ would be good again.

JO:
Can you put a name on that feeling inside you?

JOHN
LEE: My brother says it’s the devil. My brother says the devil
can twist people every which way until they do things they don’t mean to do. My
brother says the devil is workin’ on me with some awful sin I keep hidden
inside me.

JO:
Do you think you have some hidden sin in your life?

JOHN
LEE: What do you think? I
reckon I could have. You know I really don’t like God at all. In fact I’ve
hated him for a long time. Could that be a hidden sin?

JO:
Yes, it could. Do you know why you hate God?

JOHN
LEE: I reckon I sure do.

JO:
John Lee, could you share it with me?

JOHN
LEE: I’ve never told nobody before. I just keep it to myself.

JO:
Keeping it to
yourself is probably the worst thing you could do. If you could share your sin
with God I’m sure he would forgive you. That sure would lift a burden off you
that you have carried around for so long.

JOHN
LEE: Well, I don’t know about that … You want me to speak it out
loud?

JO:
Whatever way you want to do it will be fine.

JOHN
LEE: Well, then…I guess I
could talk it out loud. Might ease my mind. You won’t tell my family? I
wouldn’t want them to feel bad about me talkin’ to you like this.

JO:
I won’t tell them.

JOHN
LEE: Well, you see, this
started a long time ago. Me and my little brother was in the back of the wagon
and Mama and Daddy was up front. We was crossing the Big Stone River in a
narrow and shallow place when one of the wagon wheels got stuck up on a big
rock in the river bed. Daddy had the mules go up and back trying to get the
wagon to go over the rock. When he finally got the wagon wheel to go all the
way over the rock, the wagon leaned to the side real quick like and Momma fell
into the water. The Big Stone was really rollin’ that day and the water got
ahold of Mama’s long dress and weighed her down. Daddy told me to grab ahold of
her while he righted the mules. I was holdin’ her hand but it was mighty tough
against the rushin’ water. I wasn’t about to turn loose of Mama’s hand and
Daddy reached for me just as I was about to go into the water with her. When
Daddy grabbed my leg her hand slid out of mine. The waters took her down the
river and out of our sight. The men found her the next day hung up in some tree
limbs hangin’ low over the water.

JO:
John Lee that must
have been awful for you to see.

JOHN
LEE: Sure was. Now you tell me how I should love a God that took
away my momma right before my eyes. Tell me. That’s been a burr under my saddle
all these years. Tell me why that happened? Can you?

JO: No, I can’t. I
can tell you this—you need to have a personal talk with God and tell him how
you’ve felt for all this time. If you’ll listen to God he’ll help you get this
thing settled. He’ll wash you sins away and then you will be a better man to
your family. But you have to go to God and lay it all out there. Can you do
that, John Lee?

~ ~ ~

The winner of last
Thursday's blog post for a copy of Key Witness by Christy Barritt is Katie.I'll email you to
get your mailing address and get the book out to you. Thanks all for
commenting. Watch for more book giveaways.

I think people are so short on time that they are only able to read a few blogs each day. I don't really have any idea how to increase traffic to a blog. It would be interesting to research, though. One idea that I've seen is that the readers gets an extra chance on winning a book if she comments on a non-giveaway post. That could get more people reading posts that are non-giveaway. For myself, I like to read and comment on blogs that have interesting content and the blogger responds to the commenter. There are thousands of blogs that have interesting content, but if I don't get responses back to my comments, I lose interest pretty quickly.

Kay, thank you so much for your insight. I like the idea of a comment on a non-giveaway getting an extra chance on the Thursday blog. I'll try that. I appreciate your comment. I'm so glad you read my blog. Thanks.